The Bluffs Grand Ho Tram

If you’re looking to play golf in Ho Chi Minh City and don’t mind a two-hour drive south along the coast, The Bluffs Grand Ho Tram is worth every minute on the road. Designed by Greg Norman, this 18-hole links-style course sits on a stretch of coastline in Ho Tram, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, where natural sand dunes rise and fall across the layout like something pulled straight from the coasts of Ireland or Scotland.

What makes this course different from most Ho Chi Minh City golf courses is the terrain itself. The dunes here weren’t built or shaped by bulldozers. They’ve been formed over thousands of years by wind and sea, and Norman’s team routed the holes through them with minimal disturbance. The result feels raw and organic in a way that manicured parkland courses simply can’t replicate. Fairways roll with the land, greens sit on natural plateaus, and bunkers are deep, strategic, and everywhere.

Then there’s the wind. It is always present at The Bluffs, and its direction shifts depending on the season. During the dry months (November through April), expect a steady breeze off the ocean that affects club selection on nearly every shot. In the wet season, the wind swings and picks up, turning a 150-yard approach into a genuine puzzle. The course even uses two separate stroke indexes for dry and wet seasons, which tells you how much conditions change.

A few holes deserve special mention: the 1st shares its fairway with the 9th, reminiscent of the Old Course at St. Andrews. The 16th is a 651-yard par 5 that plays downhill but tightens around the green. And the par 3s are, honestly, some of the most photogenic in Southeast Asia.

Ranked #76 on Golf Digest’s list of the world’s greatest courses, The Bluffs is regularly cited as Vietnam’s best. For golfers visiting the south, it is one of those Ho Chi Minh City golf courses (technically just outside the city) that you plan an entire trip around.